Iran and Oman have reached a potential agreement for managing ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz that would exclude military vessels from traversing the vital waterway.
Tehran won’t allow military vessels to transit through the Strait of Hormuz under the agreement that the Islamic Republic is negotiating with Oman, Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, said on Tuesday.
It comes after top diplomats of the two countries met to discuss managing commercial shipping traffic in the vital waterway, which remained largely shut down nearly six months after the Iran war began.
Gharibabadi told state television late Tuesday that commercial shipping traffic into the Persian Gulf would pass through Iranian waters, while the outbound route would pass partly through Iranian waters and partly through Oman’s waters.
He said the routes would be temporary and that Iran and Oman must discuss a permanent maritime traffic plan within 30 to 60 days.
The latest development comes amid US President Donald Trump’s threat to bomb Oman if it “gets in the way”, as his administration opposes parts of the evolving deal.
The Trump administration has told Oman it is opposed to parts of the yet-to-be-announced deal, including the joint Iranian and Omani management of the exit route out of the passage that’s critical to global supplies of oil and natural gas.
Washington believes Oman has not been tough enough in its negotiations with Iran and is unhappy with Oman’s agreement to collect voluntary fees from vessels, even if the charges are related to security and maritime environmental protection
Trump not in a hurry to resume talks with Iran
On Wednesday, Trump, in an interview with a Qatar-based broadcaster, Al Jazeera, said that he believes the United States is “winning very big” as the conflict with Iran nears the six-month mark.
“I have no time schedule; whatever it takes,” he told the Qatar-based broadcaster.
In another interview Wednesday, Trump said he thinks Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Motjaba Khamenei, is “very seriously wounded”, but not dead.
Motjaba Khamenei became supreme leader after his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed at the start of the war. The younger Khamenei was badly wounded in the attacks and has remained out of public view.
The war has heavily stalled business across the Middle East, disrupting vital shipping lanes, halting regional trade, and driving up energy and transport costs.
Dubai airport traffic dropped sharply during Iran war
Meanwhile, Dubai International Airport, one of the world’s busiest travel hubs, said Wednesday that it saw a sharp drop in passengers as the Iran war disrupted air travel across the Middle East.
The airport recorded 13 million passengers in the second quarter of 2026, bringing the total to about 31.5 million passengers for the first half of the year. That’s down 31.3% compared to last year at the halfway mark.
The airport said aircraft movements totalled 150,600 in the first half, down 32.1% year on year, with only 62,500 in the second quarter.
However, according to CEO Paul Griffiths, there has been a consistent monthly growth in passenger volume during the second quarter, and this momentum is anticipated to continue.
“The events of the disruption, which lasted two months, that had an impact on traffic … but I’m very confident we’ll be back to full operation in a very short space of time. ” Griffits said.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in a letter to the United Nations on Tuesday, urged the world body to condemn the latest US move to cut off Tehran from the rest of the global economy.
The “economic onslaught” that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared this week amounts to the deliberate targeting of Iranian civilians with the “intentional deprivation of access to food, medicines, medical equipment, energy and other necessities”, according to Araghchi.
Additional sources • AP